42 Best Productivity and Time Management Books (in 2024)

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your workload? Or that you don’t have any progress at all?

If you did, we got you covered.

We asked 37 experts “What are the best productivity and time management books to read?”

Discover their top recommendations below!

The most recommended productivity and time management books are:

To be successful in today’s environment you have to produce great work.

The only way you can produce quality output is by devoted uninterrupted time to your most important tasks.

The theory and practices behind Deep Work are that you remove distractions for set periods of the day in order to do your finest work. The ideas presented in this book are extremely effective and will change your approach to your schedule and To-Do list.

This book helps you to determine your most important tasks based on your goals.

There’s no point in being busy all day long if you are not moving closer to achieving your goals.

It talks about making sure that you are clear on your most important tasks and that you dedicate enough time to these tasks without being distracted by other day-to-day activities. Again, it changed my approach to work.

There is so much information in this book. It covers everything from sleep to caffeine and alcohol, to time management, diet, and exercise, setting goals, aligning tasks.

The author spent a year trying all types of productivity fads and shares his findings. Both from his personal experience but provides the scientific data to back his claims. It’s a very entertaining read.

This book changed my life when I was drowning in too many meetings and too many emails.

David Allen creates a simple but effective plan for organizing every aspect of your life. The book offers several simple but powerful rules to follow to help organize your life.

The main theme is that by organizing your life with lists you free your creative mind. Instead of staying up late at night or spending all day trying to remember what you need to do you have freed your mind to be more creative.

This strategy can help the creative person to the high level executive.

To me, this classic is the foundation on which all other productivity and time management books have been written.

Smith was the founder of The Franklin Company, which was one of the first time management companies formed.

This book covers setting your daily actions according to what you value and how to get this done.

Smith dives into “stepping out of your comfort zone” in detail because this is where change and real productivity happen.

The book also goes into details on the “SMART” strategy for setting goals, which was created by Smith and has been an adopted productivity tool by many companies and individuals to this day.

This book is full of valuable templates and diagrams that will help you set your productivity goals holistically!

This book really covers the importance of creating “intentional focus and isolation” to perform the “Deep Work” needed to concentrate on completing a project or reaching a goal.

With all of the technology and imposed deadlines from others, the space to focus deeply on a project is a lost art.

In this book, Newport gives you unapologetic permission to block out chunks of time, and shut out the rest of the world, to focus on accomplishing the things that will move you forward with your business and life.

The practice of “Deep Work” daily has definitely increased my productivity and completion rate on many projects. It has also freed up a lot of time in my schedule to do more of the personal things I love. I highly recommend this book…it’s transforming.

I’ve been accused of being too hyper with the attention span of a fruit fly or a goldfish.

Yes, these humble critters have been awarded the dubious honor of having the shortest memory according to some studies.

They should read Chris Bailey’s engaging “Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction” to get some tips.

Split into two sections, Bailey contends that “hyperfocus” which is devoting your attention to one big task and “scatterfocus” which is letting your creative mind wander to collect ideas are both necessary. But only one should be in driver’s seat at a time.

His book packs insightfulness, humor, and practical tips in a blessedly short 256 pages – the trifecta in the race to being more productive!

The book explains in great detail how important it is to be focused on one major task in each project at one time, and how multitasking damages our ability to be productive.

Among other things the book explains the importance of the 80-20 rule as well as the domino effect (as in doing one task right makes the next task of the project easier).

One key concept of the book which I like the most is to choose the top 3-5 tasks for each day by asking one’s self what task should I do today which will make the other tasks (of this project) easier or unnecessary.

In a world where we’re too distracted by short-term kicks from social media etc., trying to be more focused on our most important tasks has never been more important. This book helps you find what tasks/habits make you most successful so you can focus on those and ignore the rest.

This book was just released by the expert on habit formation and productivity. After following James blog for years – I immediately jumped on the train and purchased this book and read it.

Love how he describes how you can create small habits that on their own don’t improve your well-being that much, but together – they create a synergy that makes your life so much better.

Okay, I’ll probably not be the first to recommend this book. But it literally changed my life ~4 years ago.

Tim, who is a famous guy in the startup and productivity scene, describes how you can focus on the famous 80/20 rule to work less and get more results at the same time.

Sure, you won’t probably have 4-hour work weeks, but you can easily cut off a lot of hours by simply tracking what’s giving you the highest return and focusing more on those tasks.

What’s great about this system is that it can improve your productivity even if you don’t implement it 100% perfectly.

Trying to do it “perfectly” is a pretty daunting challenge quite frankly! But I love the concept of capturing work into lists you can tackle wherever you are. Your “Call List” can be tackled from the car or while you’re waiting to pick up a child from practice.

The most beneficial concept is the “next action”. So many times we put a project aside and then it takes us 20 minutes to figure out where we were when we pick it up again.

By using the ‘next action’ concept, you’re figuring out the exact, specific next step. That way it can be put on the appropriate list, or just save you a ton of time when you pick it back up again.

An important book for new people leaders and a great refresher for us old-hands too! It’s an easy to read the parable that reinforces that the manager’s job is to enable their people’s success – NOT to do their jobs for them.

If you are starting in a new role or a new company, this book provides a roadmap and key points to think through to make sure you’re positioned for success. I like that it stresses relationship building and securing early wins, two very important concepts to keep in front of you no matter what your role is.

This book is full of insights about the way our brain leads us to work in certain ways.

It gives tips to rewire and work around all the limitations of our Pre Frontal Cortex, our conscious brain.

David Rock uses a variety of techniques, such as analogies, stories, and real-life examples to make these complex topics accessible to all and offers a section on “surprises about the brain” and “tips” to summarize the learnings at the end of each chapter.

The book offers strategies do deal with a range of situations, including overcoming distractions, feeling overwhelmed as well as getting unstuck when in a creative rut and is aimed at all types of people.

The strategies can be applied to the way we work, but also the way we live our life or study.

It is truly a fascinating book that will have any reader rethink the way they perceive their work hours.

I read it in a week about a year ago and still apply the techniques I learned daily. It truly “rocked” my world!

First Things First by Stephen Covey is a fantastic book that, in my opinion, would make an excellent gift for any entrepreneur.

The book discusses the Covey Method and everything from effective time management and prioritization, to organization and highlighting through weekly activity worksheets.

The book is a nice stepping-stone toward increasing productivity, reducing stress levels, and increasing all-around happiness in the workplace.

A highlight for me in Covey’s book is the organization system that’s discussed; which essentially helps its readers not procrastinate by staying organized and putting first things first.

The reason this book is so great for entrepreneurs is that it helps them find time to work more effectively and to also juggle family and other important aspects of their lives.

This is a great book to learn how to manage your time and get the important things out of the way first.

The concept comes from an old saying “if you eat a live frog first thing each morning, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s probably the worst thing you’ll do all day.”

That’s the whole point of this book, it reinforces the idea that the thing you most likely will procrastinate on is the thing you should work on first.

That way you have the satisfaction of getting the worse out the way and thus become more productive.

Jason Patel

This is one of my favorites, and it has withheld the test of time.

The book teaches sales and management techniques.

It’s a big time-saver to have outstanding advice written down in plain speak. The book is simple, structured well, and empirically tested.

You want practical advice, not theory, and this book provides exactly that. You get advice and no fluff from someone who has succeeded.

We procrastinate on tasks we don’t want to do.

Brian Tracey says do the worst thing you have to do all day, as the first thing of the day.

It serves several purposes, first, it clears your mind the rest of the day because the task is over and done, it makes you more productive because you’re not thinking about the task you hate to do because it’s already done, you can focus on the work at hand rather than focusing on that task you dislike that you’ll have to do later.

It’s why many folks choose to get up and exercise–it’s over and then you have the rest of your day.

As an admitted checklist addict, I love having a list of things to do and lists to help me organize.

I’ve got a Christmas spreadsheet of all the tasks and people I buy (or donate) for each holiday. No thinking required and what a time saver.

Why not have a check list for travel so you never forget to pack anything?

By being organized you save time, avoid errors, and get better outcomes, both in business and personally.

I live and die by checklists because they are wonderful tools to stay organized and show your productivity. Atul agrees and allows the reader to see the value in checklists as a way to keep us on track.

The book focuses on showing how checklists can be used for greater efficiency, productivity, consistency, and safety.

Stuff gets in the way of productivity: life, kids, illness, emergencies, procrastination, mood, etc.

If we always allow things to get in the way of productivity, we get stressed and our work product becomes less good.

David offers solutions on how to get things done and keep the stress levels low: like make lists and if it takes only two minutes to do something, just do it now.

By staying organized and writing things down, your stress levels will lessen, and you can think better, faster, and well, in a more productive fashion.

This book completely changed the way I think about work and productivity.

David Allen’s advice on getting ideas out of your head and into a reliable workflow transformed my ability to be productive.

As someone who has trouble focusing, it really helped me manage all the inputs in my life and turn them into actionable tasks.

The premise of this book is that while work has changed dramatically in the last two decades, our workplaces have not.

One of the central points made by the authors is that interruption is the enemy of productivity–and how, as a result, truly supportive workplaces allow their people to get the time and space they need to do deep, meaningful work and still leave at a reasonable hour to have quality time with their family and friends.

That shouldn’t be a revolutionary idea, but it is in many workplaces.

While this book is written primarily for women, it had a huge impact on me.

Perhaps the biggest eye-opener is inferred in the subtitle: Vanderkam encourages readers to think of time as abundant, not scarce, and to take responsibility for setting priorities in a way that ensures you have time for what really matters.

One of the most useful tools she provides is a time tracking sheet to help her audience account for where the time goes–and start thinking about where it should go.

This one has changed my approach to tasks. Now, I don’t rush to complete them at a rapid-fire pace but plan each step on the way to completing each task more efficiently.

The book is a must-read for hopeless procrastinators: it’s full of essential rules and methods for dealing with the chaos of both work and personal life; it will help you get organized fast and learn affordable techniques for better time and space management.

To get me distracted from work is like taking candy from a baby.

Emails, chatting colleagues, background music, notifications from social media accounts — all they frustrate but yet tempt to spend time on them.

Deep Work by Cal Newport revealed the concept of “deep work” for me as well as share the techniques for mastering this skill.

It’s about how to eliminate shallow work, funnel your focus and energy to demanding tasks, and get a sense of fulfillment from it.

Here, the author interviews people who realized a huge impact of time management on their overall well-being and developed actionable habits and techniques to master it.

Real-life examples and advice from successful people inspire, motivate, and teach us to prioritize and allocate time differently.

It is more important to control how we think that the content of our reflections and based on this premise and along eight key concepts will teach us the importance of decision making in both personal and professional life.

This book has changed the way of understanding my job and has not made the leap in leadership that we needed to be able to expand. In very easy to read and every concept explained there, it resonates in your head for weeks.

I leave you a thought of the author who has personally identified me.

“Productivity has to do especially with choosing certain options in certain ways. The way we decide to see ourselves and frame the daily decisions, the stories we tell ourselves and the easy goals we ignore, the sense of community that we instill in our teammates, and the creative culture that we establish as leaders, all this is what differentiates simply occupied people from really productive ones.” – Charles Duhigg

The #1 book on time management I’d recommend is Getting Things Done by David Allen.

This book teaches you how to stay organized, achieve your goals, kill distractions, and keep track of progress.

The author includes plenty of practical systems and strategies, leaving you with something to try after almost every few paragraphs.

It’s a great mix between theory and hands-on advice.

A do-it-yourself guide to how to make smart habits and more importantly making them stick.

It will teach you that constant busyness and exhaustion are not mandatory to be productive.

You’ll be able to take control of your time and attention after reading this book.

This book reveals the mistakes in the way we currently work.

It teaches how we can increase our productivity by learning a simple set of principles and applying them in the correct sequence.

This book shows that productivity doesn’t come from being overworked.

If you want to learn the secret to being successful without sacrificing your lifestyle, this is the book for you.

Essentialism is the foundational basis of productivity.

Where so many people are just focused on getting as much done as possible, essentialism pulls the masses back to see the failure in this approach.

It forces you to ask yourself “Is what I am doing essential for what I am trying to achieve? For the life I want to lead? For the person, I want to be?”

That level of constant reflection and acting with mindful intention ensures that only what is truly valuable and necessary is worthy of your time, energy, creativity, and attention.

You begin to realize how inundated we all are with “more”. More apps, channels, streaming services, Netflix specials, emails, meetings, requests, and frivolous commitments that could fall under the category of wasted time.

Eliminating the non-essential, on the macro scale of a longer-term goal, produces clarity on the necessary actions for success, identifying and measuring metrics that matter with precision, and the time to produce the best work.

Eliminating the non-essential, on the micro-scale of your day-to-day or hour-to-hour, eliminates distractions, maximizes time spent with optimal energy and creativity on tasks that matter, and ensures continual progression in a way that feeds directly into the compound effect (another great book).

A book written by one expert is great. But typically, the important information, major takeaways, and actionable steps to achieve whatever that expert prescribes could be summarized in a single chapter (okay, fine, maybe two chapters).

But a book that leverages the knowledge, experiences, and expertise of 20 experts in a way that allows you to read 5 pages but walk away with the insights and strategies that you are used to absorbing in an entire book, you have found something invaluable.

Manage Your Day-to-Day does just that. You would be hard-pressed to find a book/article/course/podcast/whatever that provides you with such a high-quality toolkit to support you in reaching optimal focus, enhance your creativity, minimizing the control technology has over us, and incorporating all of this into a hard-wired routine.

When, not if you pick this up, I highly suggest giving it a quick read through in its entirety first. Then, keeping it as one of the very few items you keep in your workspace, treat it as a productivity buffet that you dive into face first when necessary.

Don’t let the “ADHD” scare you away.

Even if you aren’t diagnosed, in today’s society so many experiences similar issues that those of us with ADHD do. Of course, to a much lesser extent.

For once, there was a resource created by and for someone with ADHD. Someone with expertise, experience, and success to provide way more than enough credibility to it.

ADHD isn’t just being distracted easily or moving a lot. There is so much more depth and complexity to how it impacts such a wide variety of aspects of our lives.

Hearing someone else being able to explicitly explain those in a clear and concise way that aligned with how I felt was game-changing (this is before even hearing his solutions).

Why? Because I knew what was about to come next was FOR ME and not for the neurotypical (what works for neurotypicals is more difficult for those with ADHD but what works for those with ADHD typically works for neurotypicals).

Then, he delivered. He delivered on how ADHD is actually your biggest strength.

How to take the absurd amount of creative energy you have and leverage it to work for you. To take that hyperfocus that used to waste hours upon hours of time and make it produce more results in an hour than you have in the past two days.

How to build ADHD-friendly routines that protect you from most of the pitfalls and trap doors of ADHD. And for the ones that he doesn’t account for, he teaches you how to identify them and strategically avoid them.

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy is a classic book on productivity.

Trying to do everything at once is a common mistake when organizing a day and it was my mistake too awhile ago.

Brian Tracy tells about how to set priorities so that most important tasks are successfully completed

Always been curious about how our body and mind work. I think it helps to know ourselves.

The Power of Habit talks about the scientific facts about our habits, good and bad. And eventually, it gives the reader tools for building good habits.

Being productive seems like an impossible task. Laura Vanderkam collected in this book the experience of many successful people.

It helps to know that other humans face just the same problems. And if they can solve them so can you.

David Allen uses the “5 stages of mastering workflow”visually:

• Collecting
• Processing
• Organizing
• Reviewing
• Producing

Charles explores 8 different concepts using emotions and psychology:

• Motivation
• Focus
• Teamwork
• Goal setting
• Managing others
• Making decisions
• Innovation and
• Absorbing information

If there is one book you should read about productivity and time management it should be this book.

It is a comprehensive and robust book that covers every aspect. It flows in a logical order from beginning to organizing to systematizing, using technology, and constantly improving.

My all-time favorite book on productivity and time management is “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy.

What I really like about this book is how practical and actionable it is!

It doesn’t have a lot of scientific theories or experiments. On the contrary, it is a simple book which can be understood by everyone.

Anyone looking for ways to be more productive can get ideas from this book. It has 21 chapters and each chapter teaches a new tip or trick to overcome procrastination and get more things done in lesser time.

My favorite chapter is “Eat that Frog”, which teaches the main concept of the book that start your day by doing the task that you dread the most.

Once that is out of the way, the rest of your day will be easy in comparison. This technique has literally changed the way I work and made my life a lot easier.

This short book (42 pages cover-to-cover) is a complete summary of the world-famous time management principles developed by Alan Lakein.

First published in the early 1970s, the original text (‘How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life’) was required reading in the training programs at dozens of major corporations; bit I first discovered it in a college business course.

While the book itself is now considered a “classic” in its field, the principles and methods that Lakein teaches are truly timeless.

And those methods can work equally well in both professional and personal settings.

This book approaches time management by analyzing time-tracking logs from relatively large samples of highly successful people.

After analyzing these logs, Vanderkam shares the habits and strategies that these people use – which are very insightful, and interesting as there are real-life examples to accompany them.

She encourages people to look at the time their more creatively and find ways to include all the important things. (168 is the number of hours in a week.)

This is an old classic but one that still has a lot of value.

I particularly love his analogy about putting rocks, pebbles, sand into a jar: if you start with the little things, the big things won’t fit. But if you start with the big things, you can fit the smaller things around them.

This is a brand new book and highly recommended. These guys have an original approach to taking control of our time, attention and energy. Lots of very practical tips for being more deliberate and therefore making more meaningful progress towards our goals.

Never before have I read a book that took such an honest, analytical, and ultimately extremely helpful deep dive into the world of productivity.

Chris Bailey, like many of us, is fascinated with the very idea of productivity and in this book he turns himself into a productivity experiment guinea pig. If you’ve ever read an article about “Here’s what productive people do…” — he tries it in this book.

In different “experiments” he isolates himself, works 90 hours a week, meditates for hours on end, and completely overhauls his diet.

Through it all, Bailey gives his honest appraisals–including when he finds the experiment to be a total disaster. I was especially interested when he took on the “wake up every day at 5:30” habit and found that it made him far less productive.

As each experiment is recorded, Bailey uses hard data from external studies to draw conclusions. His findings lead to some fascinating conclusions about how we can be most productive, and how many internet articles about productivity don’t always apply to everyone.

I have incorporated much of his advice into my regular routine and I’ve been much more productive for it.

If you’re looking for an entertaining, data-rich, immensely readable, and insightful book about productivity, I highly recommend “The Productivity Project.”

Essentialism is the best book I have found on productivity.

It’s not a life hack productivity tip. It talks in a very clear and straightforward manner about how to simplify your life, your thinking, and your purpose to cut out all the extraneous “stuff” that continually distracts us and focus on what’s really important.

This is a book that you wouldn’t expect to make normally make the list of time management and productivity books.

However, it helps you take a step back and consider the big picture view of your life to help you assess what is truly important, thus where you should focus the productivity and effective time management. Optimizing efforts the wrong task doesn’t get you anywhere.

This book helps you focus on being effective rather than being efficient.

It dives into the weeds of real, actionable examples to help you shift focus to the activities that will produce the greatest results. From the 80/20 principle to outsource efforts for “busy work” this book will set you on the right course.

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter Drucker is an old one (it was first published in 1967!) but it stands the test of time.

In the words of the great man himself, the book is about two important and related concepts – “get the right work done” and “done the right way”.

Drucker emphasizes that executives need to a) have the knowledge they need, b) convert that knowledge into effective action, and c) ensure that the entire organization feels accountable, responsible, and engaged.

If those three criteria are met, success is guaranteed.

No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Guide to Time Productivity and Sanity by Dan Kennedy suggest an approach to time management that can best be described as unorthodox or even radical.

While it is non-fiction, it reads like a novel and includes both stories of success and failure as Kennedy puts his principles into practice. If you are looking to stop making excuses for yourself and get to work, this is a great choice.

Greg McKeown pushed me to work smarter, not harder.

By embracing essentialism, I became better at prioritizing tasks, saying no to projects that impeded my ultimate goals, and appropriately assigning time to complete tasks.

After reading “Essentialism”, I truly felt I had a stronger vision of and more control over my every day as well as long-term objectives.

Charles Duhigg makes practical advice relateable and easy to absorb through stellar storytelling.

I especially appreciate that his advice is firmly grounded in research from a variety of sources – not just neuroscientists and behavioral economists, but from FBI agents, Disney filmmakers, and even a professional poker player.

This book challenged me to rethink my usual way of doing business and improved my goal setting and decision-making skills.

Seth Godin helped me, a Type A individual, see the true benefits of strategic quitting.

This quick, humorous read taught me how to recognize when my project is facing a temporary setback (dip) or a completely dead-end (cul-de-sac). I can now quit projects without guilt and spend more meaningful time on projects that have a better chance of success.

A book that can broaden our horizon, help us understand human behavior and improve our daily lives. It also tackles specific steps to follow in order to better manage our time and how to organize our lives both at home and at the office.

This is a business novel, but insights and general wisdom can be used in any environment. A true classic when it comes to productivity, this book is a must-read for business students.

This book feels like the little black book for things “some” people just know.

It’s so good that I read it twice and I buy it for everyone I respect professionally. The biggest focus of the book “keep an eye on the details” cannot be taken lightly.

For a creative entrepreneur, this is almost a re-training of the mind, but it’s an important skill to adopt. You save time if you take in the details and focus. No work is ever re-done!

This book talks about the importance of giving your company/startup/business the best effort and what that looks like.

So the idea that one can start a business now and do it part-time, is not in Gary’s vocabulary. He has a no-nonsense approach to entrepreneurship and it’s one I agree with wholeheartedly.

I have been using this book’s principals for 15 years and it has helped me build and manage a law firm.

David’s principles allow you to organize your day, your year, and your life in a way that doesn’t induce anxiety.

The system lets you get your thoughts out of your head and onto a list, an in-box, or something else so you can think clearly.

I literally give this book to all of my employees on their first day.

“The first rule of frog-eating is: ‘If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.”

Eat That Frog is a great book for giving tangible strategies for getting stuff done by prioritizing correctly.

It’s a must-read for anyone needing to bump up their productivity.

I love this book because it offers the ultimate cheat-sheet on how to manage people and become a more productive manager.

It’s a short book, told in story format, so it’s interesting to read and provides actionable tips on how to be a truly productive manager.

While I have read many books on productivity and time management, the one that has had the biggest impact on my life is Deep Work by Cal Newport.

This book is not just about time management, but also about how to get meaningful work done. It professes to get rid of distractions and create an environment where deep work can be done.

The first part of the book explains the power of deep work and why it’s important to create a space conducive for it. The second half of the book gives out useful tips and methods to start with the habit of Deep Work and persist with it.

I started using the techniques mentioned in the book in April this year, and I have seen a significant improvement in my productivity.

The authors focus on figuring out what’s really important and prioritizing daily tasks. Reading this book, you’ll definitely find a way that can lead you in the right direction.

Here you’ll find different easy-to-implement tips for time management. It took me one day to read this great book as it’s really easy to read and leaves fun emotions and useful insights.

This is the book that was the most discussed within our team. We are all busy and always try to find better ways to prioritize our daily-life and work issues.

The author’s method for increasing productivity takes just 18 minutes a day. And it works!

Perhaps, you’ll also get the answers to your questions and find a way to better prioritize and get the important things done, reading this book.

One of the keys to productivity is to work on more valuable problems, which even when only partially solved, can yield an outsized impact.

Blitzscaling is written by billionaire Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and it had an immediate impact on me.

Do you have enough margin in your business and life? Are you working on a problem in a way that can eventually be systematized and scaled? Does your business create experiences that naturally compel others to spread the word about you?

Changing my life so that I could answer “Yes” to each of these questions had an immediate and dramatic impact on me personally and in my business.

This book is about thinking really big so that you can move really fast and be more likely to have a massive impact — and all sooner than expected.

Now that’s productivity!

Many books on productivity are about how the individual can be more productive, and while I love those books, this one is different.

This book is about how you can get groups of people on the same page in a clear manner so that huge, challenging goals can be accomplished much faster.

This book is written by one of the initial investors in Google, and it includes many stories directly told from business leaders who explain how a system of clear Objectives and Key Results changed their lives.

I use the OKR (Objectives & Key Results) system in my own life and after introducing it to my team we’re all moving much more effectively together!